For Saint Anselm, the Goal is Not Growth, But Perfection

Published in The Union Leader
By Tom Fahey— Union Leader Staff

September 8, 2003

While some small colleges dream of growing into universities so they can attract more students and grow some more, others think they are sized just right. Put Saint Anselm College in the second category.

"I have no aspiration to be Boston College. I'd like to be known as the finest small liberal arts college in the country," Saint Anselm President Fr. Jonathan DeFelice said.

Even with a revived football program, new dorms, a $7.9 million hockey rink, and other improvements on campus, the college is not looking to swell enrollment.

"It always comes back to the fact that we don't want to get so big that we lose our sense of identity," said DeFelice, college president since 1989. "At the same time, if someone wanted to drop $100 million on me, I'd take it."

The college's 400-acre campus, perched on a Goffstown hillside, has just under 2,000 students, all headed for a liberal arts degree. The school consistently ranks among the top small schools in the country in the annual U.S. News and World Report rankings.

"Some of the jobs our graduates will hold may not even exist now. We want to give them the tools they will need to think and succeed," he said. "We want them to do good work, be good citizens, and lead good lives. Now more than ever we need to focus attention on what it means to be engaged as a citizen in our democracy."

Although he is content with its size, DeFelice said the college—one of the oldest Catholic colleges in New England—can improve.

Not surprisingly, a lot of his plan has to do with money. Right now, Saint Anselm is on a campaign to double its $50 million endowment. So far, the drive has raised $41 million, he said in a recent interview at The Union Leader offices.

He said he wants to boost the endowment to help the college keep its faculty at the highest levels. Deeper pockets would let Saint Anselm give faculty more time for research, lighter class loads, and help keep them from jumping to other schools that dangle better packages.

But adding students just to generate extra tuition income is not on the table. DeFelice said college administrators generally agree: "The ability to connect with faculty is somehow related to the size of the student body."

"The only temptation to do it is money, because if you can't make it staying small, the other option is to go big. More students would help in terms of our financial situation, but at what price? We've decided that it is better to do higher quality with less than to get big and lose what we've got."

The school's close affiliation with the Benedictine order will help it resist growth pressure, he said.

Helping raise the college's profile on a national and local scale are its New Hampshire Institute of Politics and the Meelia Center for Community Service . The Institute has sponsored debates and forums that feature national leaders and presidential candidates. The Meelia Center coordinates student service projects at 35 Manchester area schools and non-profits.

Students from New England make up the bulk of the campus population. Last spring, 420 New Hampshire students and 987 Massachusetts students were among the 1,840 at Saint Anselm.
 
While Saint Anselm is a Catholic college, "This is not a college just for Catholics. It's a community of respect—the idea that all people, teachers, and students, somehow mirror God," he said.

He said he wants to continue to provide access to New Hampshire students, to whom the college awarded $5 million in financial aid last year.

"We want people to know we've got a high-quality liberal college in southern New Hampshire too, not just in Hanover," he said.